Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is starting his own news outlet that will offer "factual and neutral" articles in order to combat "fake news".

The site, called "Wikitribune", will be operated and written by paid journalists, but will also be fact-checked, and sometimes edited, by community volunteers.

"Wikitribune takes professional, standards-based journalism and incorporates the radical idea from the world of Wiki that a community of volunteers can and will reliably protect and improve articles," reads a newly revealed website announcing the project.

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"The news is broken, and we can fix it" is the keystone pledge of Wikitribune, as seen by BBC News.

Wales's new endeavour will also abandon the traditional advertising funding model used by most other media outlets, which he believes is causing "a race to the bottom" where the hunger for clicks compromises journalistic standards.

Instead, Wales intends to fund Wikitribune with monthly subscriptions. But unlike sites like The Times, it won't be blocked off to non-subscribers by a paywall. Instead, the crowdfunded site will remain open to everyone.

Wikitribune will be an entirely separate entity from Wikipedia, which was launched 16 years ago. However, Wales has said he wants to get hands-on with Wikitribune, becoming its CEO for the first 12 months or more.

"I think we're in a world right now where people are very concerned about making sure we have high-quality, fact-based information, so I think there will be demand for this," Wales told the BBC.

The size of Wikitribune's team will depend on the amount of money pledged to the service by its subscribers.

"We're getting people to sign up as monthly supporters and the more monthly supporters we have, the more journalists we can hire," Wales added.

It's hoped that freedom from advertising, and a regular stream of income from supporters, will allow Wikitribune to conduct "original reporting and investigative journalism".

Wales has apparently been mulling over the project for some time, but was eventually jolted into action by the actions of the Trump administration.

"It was when Kellyanne Conway said 'alternative facts' and I was just like 'f**k it, I can't deal with this. Are you kidding me? We have to do something about this'," Wales told WIRED.